More PSP Atelier titles the west will never see.Too bad, Violet has an amazing soundtrack.

Edit: Forgive me for sounding jaded on the subject. I’d love to see it released in the west, but I just don’t know.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Nicolai-Grude/1117146030 Nicolai Grude

I doubt it. They didn’t localize the first title here, so why the second? They might just erase the “2″ and call it Atelier Violet-something though.

OneOkami

I can see that happening. Especially if Atelier Rorona has done well for them.

malek86

Releasing a game on the PSP here is more risky than the PS3, though.Of course, they might make it download-only… but then I know there would be people complaining. Eh.

http://www.carpefulgur.com SpaceDrake

Why would it be “more risky”? UMDs are cheap as dirt to manufacture these days, supposedly, and the packaging is small.

malek86

Because almost nobody actually buys games for their PSP.

There’s a reason if a lot of smaller games are going download-only. Especially in Europe.

http://www.siliconera.com Melinda

Well, in Australia at least, all the major distributors have literally written off the PSP as dead in the water.

I think the best example of that is what happened with Sega lately – They announced a ‘successful launch’ of Phantasy Star Portable 2, and Valkryia Chronicles 2. All well and good, except there was only one problem.

There was only one place that stocked it – Game – and they sold it digitally.

… Except they also pulled it at the last minute. So Sega managed to release two games in Australia… where no one could actually buy it on launch. They may have fixed that, but they didn’t for a week after I went looking (I ended up with US copies instead)

In some markets, releasing PSP titles on UMD would be akin to ‘are you nuts?’

http://www.carpefulgur.com SpaceDrake

Well, in reply to the previous (why can’t we keep replying on down, boo) if we had to go all-digital, presuming that Sony would sign off on it, that would lower the barrier of entry, hilariously enough.

I have my doubts about how viable that might be, though – the console space still hasn’t taken to pure downloadables quite like the PC has yet. But heck, if we could go digital-only and still sell enough for the project to pay for itself, I’d go for it in a heartbeat.

http://www.youtube.com/user/xxHiryuuxx Hiryuu

Only thing is the download-only titles are not exempt from the rampant piracy (as far as I know). So really, the distribution method wouldn’t matter.

malek86

No, but that’s not the point. If your game is probably going to sell very little, by going download-only you’re at least avoiding all the manufacturing and retail costs.

JustaGenericUser

I hope Rorona and Totori do well enough to convince NISA to localize this.

EDIT: I know Totori isn’t here yet, but I think we can be assured it’ll be localized eventually, probably fall 2011.

http://www.carpefulgur.com SpaceDrake

Man, if a certain other company doesn’t move on this, I might just have to do something about it. Everything I’ve ever heard says that Violet is too good a game to just leave fallow. (Judie, sadly, hasn’t gotten such praise.)

Ladius

Mr CarpeFulgur, if you manage to bring to the west Atelier Violet (and maybe Atelier Lina for Ds, I swear that game’s bomba made it so underrated it almost hurt) I will be grateful forever ;__; Violet is by far the best old-style Atelier, and if this opportunity to localize it is wasted we will probably never see it in english.

Of course the same appeal goes to beloved NiSA, even if I fear that their current localization schedule could be a bit busy :

http://www.carpefulgur.com SpaceDrake

Man don’t even get me started about Lina. I’m going to start frog-marching people to get that game brought over, if necessary. It’s only the best-reviewed Atelier game in years, no reason to bring it over, naw.

Ladius

Lina is really great, it’s a shame that my extremely poor japanese knowledge hinders me from playing it with ease :( It was a shock to see how poor its sales were in Japan, and because of that and of the dwindling Ds jrpg localizations I don’t think there is a big chance to see it translated, sadly -_-

If I may ask, do you plan to localize packaged games for console? I am very thrilled to see you interested in this kind of localizations, since I thought that after Recettear you would be Steam-only.

http://www.carpefulgur.com SpaceDrake

Well, both Annie and Lina suffered from poor sales in Japan despite being good; Lise’s nigh-historical badness really poisoned the waters for the franchise on that platform (in Japan, anyway). It’s too bad because they’re both great.

As for us doing console releases… well, for stuff like this, I’d like to do it if nobody else will, although realistically we’d need some kind of partner to help with the actual construction of packaging and distribution to retailers and whatnot. That’s another reason we went all-digital with Recettear, we have no means of making boxed packages in the kind of volume a “proper” retail release would need.

Ladius

I’m really happy that you are even only considering this kind of release, we need more publishers interested in titles like this :)

Regarding the packaging and distribution I see some interesting examples in the handheld market: the Dj Max Psp games in the USA have been printed in extremely small numbers and sold only through some specialized retailers, while publishers like Aksys have apparently small releases for their niche titles and still manages to make a profit. In the PC market eroge publisher JAST USA has always published its games on physical copies even if they can sell them only in a small number of stores (almost completely online).

Of course I’m only a customer blinded by the hope of seeing Carpe Fulgur games on shelves someday and I don’t know the actual details a publisher must go through, but nonetheless I hope you will come to our rescue if NiSA doesn’t license the game :)

Phoenix_Apollo

I hope something works out for you guys soon. I’d love to see you guy do retail. Though, I have a feeling that whatever company does the DS Atelier games, they’d be going to Lise first. Dunno why, but I keep having that feeling.

http://www.youtube.com/user/xxHiryuuxx Hiryuu

A few people that I know and I were really impressed with Recettear. If such a localization effort was put forth on to something like this and other games of the series that never made it, I would be one of the first in line to get this if it was ever brought over.

Heck, I’m pretty much hoping that one fan translation for the PSX version of Marie gets finished up but it’s been slow going for months now. A lot of the good games are always like that and usually takes years. Money generally tends to be the prime motivator, though.

I just wonder if such thoughts about this would be enough to get people moving. I would wonder how a title like this would sell over here. In the several thousands or tens?

http://www.carpefulgur.com SpaceDrake

How many the game would actually sell would depend on brand loyalty, advertising, positive (or negative) word of mouth, etc. I’d put money on it being able to handily break five digits, though.

How many the game would need to be profitable is another chestnut entirely that depends very much on what the final contract might look like. I’ll say this much though: Recettear was profitable for us when it hit 20,000 units (and it’s at 30k+ now), and that was with a somewhat deliberately unfavorable contract.

As far as getting the Ateliers that never made it over at last though, trust me. It’s something I’ve wanted to see happen for a long time and now that I’m in position to actually do something about it, you can bet your ass I’ll be doing just that. The biggest hurdle right now would be the actual physical distribution.

Ladius

“It’s something I’ve wanted to see happen for a long time and now that I’m in position to actually do something about it, you can bet your ass I’ll be doing just that.”

Sir, I LOVE your attitude. I’m really happy to have bought Recettear and you can count on me to buy two copies of any Atelier game you will ever release.

JustaGenericUser

Is a PC/PSN/XBLA release possible?

http://www.youtube.com/user/xxHiryuuxx Hiryuu

Duuuuuuuuuude.

If no one else does, I would love you long time if you localized the carrot-loving alchemist.

http://www.siliconera.com Melinda

Move, you know you want to. Do I have to fish up Judie and Violete
and constantly stream them to get my point across? :P

… Although, actually, isn’t there a significant amount of debate about which one of the two was better?

Although honestly, I’d be waiting for some port of the original Marie and Ellie myself… But that’s coming from someone who owns multiple copies of some of the Ateliers.

Maybe you can resurrect an old project?

http://www.carpefulgur.com SpaceDrake

Well, the biggest problem with Marie & Elie at this point is that the games are *so* old it would work against them – even if that most recent PS2 port is gorgeous, in terms of gameplay and interaction Marie & Elie have been sadly outdone even by recent DS offerings. No way to wander around outside environments, extremely simplified gathering, no real “store management” aspect or anything; Elie would have the virtue of a crapton of content, but I really fear that the boat may have sailed on the Salburg games barring some kind of full-on Oath in Felghana-esque re-envisioning.

Meanwhile, pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to who has knowledge on the subject says that Violet is the better of the Gramnad games (due mostly to Judie changing *so many* assumed base mechanics and not for the better). Given the choice between the two, I’d choose to start with Violet and then do Judie. The two games aren’t plot-linked at all (if anything, not playing *Elie* is the one which would leave you missing a few things for Violet, since you wouldn’t really have Aizel’s backstory) so there’s no real barrier to doing them in “reverse” order if need be.

Anyway, as far as moving on it goes, there’s still the little matter of that particular company that has first right of refusal on every Atelier game ever, so we’d have to see how it goes in that department. :V Though I wonder if they might be open to a little collaboration, hmm…

http://www.siliconera.com Melinda

I know, that’s why I suggested Marie and Elie first – the chain is fun that way. That, and I’m a sentimental sucker for Atelier Marie – gotta make those sl- er fairies be self funding, and be my bomb factory and stuff.

It’d most likely would have to be a Marie&Elie port or remake on the DS that I’m surprised they haven’t done yet, either that or some market for translated classics (Considering Elie and Marie are on PSN Japan) considering how Sony were making some tentative moves towards allowing some Japanese titles to show up on English speaking PSNs.

I think some of the features in Violet irritated some of the people who played it, although my knowledge is a bit shaky on those two. Need to grab both remakes when I make my next Gust store run.

One can dream though, right?

BadenBadenPrinny

Rorona was a good gateway title for me, I hope I get to try this

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